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Many years ago my sister-in-law gave me The Silver Palate Cookbook for my birthday. It was written by two American women who had opened a shop in New York selling various foodstuffs and gourmet take-away dishes which they prepared themselves. The shop was a huge success as was this book of its recipes, which gave the owner the sense they were cooking restaurant food in their own homes, but without too much hassle. It felt cool to own this book.

When my children were young I used the book mainly for its baking recipes. There was a period when almost weekly I made the chocolate chip cookies as an after school treat for my sons and their friends. I still make the glazed lemon cake, at his request, for my eldest son’s birthday (he’s 31!)

I don’t think I’m unusual in that I sometimes forget about the cookbooks I own. It doesn’t mean I no longer like them and nor do I ever get rid of books (I’m looking at you, Marie Kondo). I love returning to old favourites and it only takes a newspaper food column or blog post to jog my memory and renew my fondness for a book or recipe.

Which is exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago when Debora Robertson wrote a post on her website entitled “You should make Chicken Marbella, you know” and I was prompted to get my Silver Palate book out again. The recipe in the book uses four small chickens (weighing 2 1/2 lbs each), quartered, giving 16 sixteen pieces. This was too much for my purposes (a small family supper) so I scaled down. I could have jointed a chicken but decided to use eight free-range chicken thighs (skin on, bone in) instead. This is what I did:

Chicken Marbella

(This dish involves marinating so start it several hours ahead or even better: the night before)

Ingredients

8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2 tsps dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

4-5 tbsps red wine vinegar

4-5 tbsps olive oil

10-12 pitted prunes

16 pitted green olives

2 tbsps capers with a bit of juice

3 bay leaves

2 tbsps brown sugar

100ml white wine

2 tbsps (approx) chopped flatleaf parsley

Method

In a large bowl or dish combine the chicken thighs, garlic, oregano, seasoning, vinegar, oil, prunes, olives, capers and juice and bay leaves. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for a few hours or overnight

To bring it up to room temperature, take the chicken out of the fridge about an hour before you want to cook it

Arrange the chicken and other ingredients in the small Aga roasting tin (or any tin measuring approx 32 x 21 cms) spooning the marinade around and over the chicken

Sprinkle over the sugar and pour in the white wine

Bake in the roasting oven for about 45 minutes. Or, if you have time, start it off in there for 15-20 minutes and then move to the simmering oven to finishing cooking slowly, allowing the chicken to become supremely tender and sticky and the flavours to develop, until you’re ready to eat

Sprinkle with the chopped parsley to serve

We ate ours with wholegrain basmati rice and green beans. Broccoli or a green salad would also go well.

Parliament has gone into recess, a new Prime Minister is in place and the schools have broken up, so it’s probably not too soon to say that the political scene will calm down a little following the tumultuous four weeks since the EU Referendum result. For this news junkie it will mean more time for neglected chores but more importantly, even though we’re not going away on holiday this year, for doing nice things with friends and family.

And now is when it starts. It’s the time of year again when I make a birthday cake for my eldest son, who is 29 today, which is hard to believe. For the last three years he’s shared his birthday with Prince George. Two of his brothers and I celebrated his 26th birthday over lunch in a Cambridge restaurant and I recall that they were irritated with me because I kept glancing at my phone to see if there were any news alerts about the royal baby. It had been announced earlier that morning that the Duchess of Cambridge had gone into labour.

I can’t remember if I made a birthday cake on that occasion, but I like to bake one for all my boys’ birthdays if it’s practical. The eldest was on an expedition in Ecuador for his seventeenth birthday and there’s a great photo of him waking up in his sleeping bag to be presented by his friends with a cupcake bearing a single candle. He lives in Cambridge and a couple of years ago, because we weren’t going to manage to meet up around the big day, I ordered him two cakes from that great Cambridge institution, Fitzbillies. (If you ever visit, you have to try their Chelsea Buns.) I couldn’t decide between the chocolate and the carrot so bought both (in the smallest size). Extravagant, but I knew he’d be sharing them with friends.

When he was small I wasn’t really into baking and anyway, was working full-time and didn’t feel I had much time in my life for it. But I did usually manage to make some sort of sponge cake and get my husband, who is more creative than me, to cut it up and shape it into whatever the boy was into that particular year, ready for me to slather it in buttercream. For example, we made a train when he was two and a football pitch when he was five.

This year, not for the first time, I’ve made his favourite Glazed Lemon Cake from the Silver Palate Cookbook. It’s not particularly quick to make, what with seven lemons to zest and a lengthy icing process, but worth it for an occasion and one cake goes a long way and keeps well in an airtight container.

We are all meeting up in London this weekend to celebrate the birthday. I will be travelling up alone on the train and have to work out a way to get the cake there without damaging it. I know it freezes well so I’ve decided to freeze it and let it gradually thaw during the journey. That way it will be very fresh by teatime and also not too squishy while in transit.

Glazed Lemon Cake

You will need a bundt tin, greased, or a tube tin, as it’s called in The Silver Palate Cookbook, which is American.

Conventional oven: pre-heat to 160ºC

You want the lemon zest to be very finely grated. I find a Microplane grater is best for this.

Ingredients

7 lemons (you’ll need all the zest but the juice of only 3 or 4)

250g unsalted butter

400g granulated sugar

3 eggs

400g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

284ml buttermilk

2 tightly packed tbsps grated lemon zest

2 tbsps fresh lemon juice

Lemon icing: see below

Method

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition

Full disclosure: as you know, I’m a fan of the all-in-one method and it works for this cake too. Mix thoroughly all the ingredients except the zest and juice and fold these in at the end

Pour batter into the prepared tin. Set on the middle rack of a pre-heated conventional oven or on the rack on the bottom rung in the Aga baking oven. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes (conventional) or slightly less time in the Aga

For Aga baking I check the cake after 30 minutes and turn it, and then check it every 10 minutes to make sure the top isn’t burnt. It shouldn’t take more than 1 hour in total. It’s done when a skewer comes out clean

Lemon Icing

450g icing sugar

125g unsalted butter, softened

3 tightly packed tbsps grated lemon zest

Juice of about 2 lemons

Place the sugar, butter and about half the juice in a mixing bowl and gradually blend them using a handheld mixer. When smooth, mix in the remaining juice and zest. Note: this icing is a lot runnier than buttercream icing.

When the cake has been out of the oven for about 10 minutes, gently pierce it all over using the narrow end of a chopstick. Spoon over about a third of the icing and allow it to sink in for about 5 minutes before turning out the cake onto a cooling rack

Pierce the other side of the cake all over and begin spooning over the remaining icing. It will slide down the sides and end up on your board/work surface but you just have to keep scooping it up and pouring it over the top again. This is the boring, lengthy bit: it could take half an hour until the icing has stopped sliding off the cake and has mostly sunk into it. See slide show below: